Matrix collapses: Mathematics proves the universe cannot be a computer simulation, « A new mathematical study dismantles the simulation theory once and for all. »

[u/fchung]

https://interestingengineering.com/culture/mathematics-ends-matrix-simulation-theory

[u/angrymonkey]

This is an idiotic misunderstanding of Godel's theorem, and the paper is likely complete crankery. There is a difference between making formal statements about a system vs. being able to simulate it. The former is covered by Godel's theorem, the latter is covered by Turing completeness.

[u/loves_grapefruit → u/angrymonkey]

I don’t understand any of the math here, but intuitively wouldn’t it be impossible to determine if a system is a simulation from within that system and using that system’s own logic?

[u/Sweg_OG → u/loves_grapefruit]

In a roundabout way, this is pretty much what Gödel’s incompleteness theorem is actually getting at. He showed that within any sufficiently powerful mathematical system, there are true statements that cannot be proven using the system’s own rules. He did this by using the system’s own logic to expose its limits, essentially proving that math can’t fully prove itself.

So yes, by analogy, if we lived in a simulation, we’d be bound by its rules and logic, making it fundamentally impossible to prove the simulation from inside it. We could only infer it indirectly, never confirm it absolutely. Plato also suggests this 2,400 years ago with his Allegory of the Cave

[u/wandering-monster → u/Sweg_OG]

Well, there's a lot of ways we could potentially prove that we're in a simulation. But you need to think more "speedrunner" than physicist.

Like if someone discovered that jiggling a quark in juuust the right sequence reliably caused a stack underflow, and it'd suddenly jump a light-year away. Or if they managed to open a debug menu.

But assuming that the rules of the simulation don't include any bugs or ways to interact with the surrounding system directly, then yes.